“Those English bastards thought of everything, didn’t they? Feckin’ spies. But they didn’t count on me. I knew it wasn’t her all along. I told you, Doc. But you wouldn’t listen, remember?”
I stood abruptly, knocking over my stool in my haste and moving away from him so I wouldn’t strangle the righteous indignation from his face.
Anne told me her grandfather—Eoin—gave her the ring along with my diary and several pictures. They were the pieces of the life he had wanted her to reclaim. Oh, Eoin, my precious boy, my poor little boy. He would have to wait so long to see her again.
“Where’s her ring now?” I asked, overcome.
Liam pulled it from his pocket and held it towards me, seemingly relieved to be rid of it. I took it from him, reeling with the knowledge that someday I would give it to Eoin. Eoin would eventually give it to Anne, his granddaughter, and she would wear it back to Ireland.
But that chapter had already been read, and my part in the rippled progression of future and past had already been played. My Anne had crossed the lough and gone home again.
“Last July, when you were moving guns on the lough, why did you shoot Anne when you saw her? I don’t understand,” I asked, seeking the final piece of the puzzle.
“I didn’t think she was real,” Liam murmured. “I see her everywhere I go. I keep killing her, and she keeps coming back.”
Oh God. If only she would come back. If only she would.
The next morning, I told Liam to go. To never come back. I promised him if he did, I would kill him myself. I gave Brigid the choice to go with him. She stayed behind, but she and I both know I wish she was gone. I can’t bring myself to forgive her. Not yet.
I don’t know how I will go on. Breathing hurts. Speaking hurts. Waking is agony. I cannot comfort myself. I cannot comfort Eoin, who does not understand any of this. He keeps asking me where his mother is, and I have no idea what to tell him. The O’Tooles are insisting we have a service for her, even without a body. Father Darby said it would help us move on. But I will never move on.
T. S.
24
WHAT WAS LOST
I sing what was lost and dread what was won,
I walk in a battle fought over again,
My king a lost king, and lost soldiers my men;
Feet to the Rising and Setting may run,
They always beat on the same small stone.
—W. B. Yeats
Jim Donnelly was Eamon Donnelly’s grandson, and he was kind. He brought me a blanket and some wool socks and threw my wet dress in his dryer. Then he called the police—the Gardai—and waited with me, making me drink a glass of water while he patted my back and guarded the door. He thought I was going to run. And I would have.
I couldn’t hold on to a thought, couldn’t stop shuddering, and when he asked me questions, I could only shake my head. He began talking to me instead, keeping his voice low as he checked his watch every few minutes.
“You called me Eamon. That was my grandfather’s name,” he said, trying to distract me. “He lived here on the lough too. We Donnellys have lived here for generations.”
I tried to sip my water, and it slipped from my hand and crashed to the floor. He jumped to his feet and brought me a towel.
“Can I bring you some coffee?” he asked as I took the towel from his hand.
My stomach roiled at the mere mention of coffee, and I shook my head and tried to whisper my thanks. I sounded like a shuddering snake.
He cleared his throat and tried again, his voice conversational. “There was a woman who drowned in that lough a long time ago. A woman named Anne Gallagher. My grandfather knew her, and he told me the story when I was a boy. It’s a small place, and she was a bit of a mystery. Over the years, the story’s taken on a life of its own. The police thought I was pulling a wee joke when I called them and told them your name. It took me a while to convince them that I wasn’t kidding.” He grimaced and fell silent.
“They never knew what happened to her?” I asked, the tears streaming down my face.
“No . . . not really. They never found her body, which was where the mystery started. She lived at Garvagh Glebe—the manor there, behind the trees,” he said, his face reflecting my distress. He rose and came back with a box of tissues.
“And her family?” I whispered. “What happened to them?”
“I don’t know, miss. It was a long time ago. It’s just an old story. Probably half true. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
When the police arrived, Jim Donnelly leapt from his chair in relief, ushering them in, and the questions began again. I was taken to a hospital and admitted for observation. My pregnancy was confirmed, my mental health questioned, and numerous calls were made to ascertain whether I was a threat to myself or others. I grasped very quickly that my freedom and independence relied on my ability to reassure everyone I was all right. I wasn’t. I was destroyed. Devastated. Reeling. But I wasn’t deranged or dangerous. Deny, deflect, refute, Michael Collins had said, and that’s what I did. In the end, I was released.
It hadn’t taken the police long to ascertain where I was staying and collect my suitcases from the Great Southern Hotel in Sligo. They had jimmied the locked door on my rental car and found my purse beneath the seats. My possessions had been combed through but were readily handed over when the investigation was closed. I paid my hospital bill, made a donation to the county search-and-rescue services, and quietly checked back in to the hotel. The desk clerk didn’t flinch when she saw my name; the police had been discreet. I had my purse, my passport, and my clothing, but I needed to rent another car. I bought one instead. I had no intention of leaving Ireland.
I’d left Manhattan one week after Eoin died. I left his clothes in his drawers, his coffee cup in the sink, and his toothbrush in the bathroom. I locked his brownstone in Brooklyn, put off the calls from his lawyer about his estate, and told my assistant and my agent to tell everyone I would deal with what was left of Eoin’s life and mine when I returned from Ireland.
His death had sent me running away. His request to have his ashes brought back to his birthplace had been a blessing. It had given me something to focus on besides the fact that he was gone. And I wasn’t in any state to go back and deal with it now.
The police had discovered a business card inside my purse with my agent’s name, Barbara Cohen, printed directly below my own. They contacted her, the only person on earth who might know where I was or where I’d gone, and they’d been in constant touch throughout the investigation. When I called her the day after being released from the hospital, she cried across the miles, yelling and blowing her nose and telling me to come home immediately.
“I’m going to stay here, Barbara,” I said softly. Speaking was painful. It jarred my bruised spirit.
“What?” she gasped in the middle of her rant. “Why?”
“Ireland feels like home.”
“It does? But . . . you’re an American citizen. You can’t just live there. And what about your career?”
“I can write from anywhere,” I answered, and I winced. I’d said the same thing to Thomas. “I’ll apply for dual citizenship. My grandfather was born here. My mother was born here too. Citizenship shouldn’t be especially difficult to acquire.” I said the words as if I meant them, but everything felt difficult. Blinking was difficult. Speaking. Staying upright.
“But . . . what about your apartment here? Your things? Your grandfather’s home?”
“The best thing about money, Barbara, is that it makes so many things easier. I can hire someone to handle all of that for me,” I soothed, already desperate to get off the phone.
“Well . . . at least you have property there. Is it livable? Maybe you won’t need to buy a home.”
“What property?” I said wearily. I loved Barbara, but I was so tired. So very tired.
“Harvey mentioned your grandfather owned property there. I just assumed you knew. Haven’t you talked to Harvey?” Harvey Cohen was married to Barbara, and he just so happened to be Eoin’s estate lawyer. It was all a little incestuous, but it was also convenient and streamlined, and Harvey and Barbara were the best at what they did. It made sense to keep it all in-house.
“You know I haven’t talked to him, Barbara.” I hadn’t talked to anyone before I left. I’d shoved everything away, sending emails and leaving messages and avoiding everyone and everything. My heart picked up its pace, thundering clumsily, angry that I was making it move when it was so sore. “Is Harvey there now? If there’s a house, I want to know about it.”
“I’ll get him,” she said. She was quiet for a moment, and I could tell she was moving through her home. When she spoke again, her voice was gentle. “What happened to you, kiddo? Where have you been?”
“I guess I got lost in Ireland,” I murmured.
“Well,” she harrumphed. “Next time you decide to get lost, give the Cohens a heads-up, will you please?” She was back to her salty self when she handed Harvey the phone.
Harvey and Barbara flew to Ireland two days later. Harvey brought all Eoin’s personal papers, our family records, and documents—birth certificates, naturalization and medical records, deeds, wills, and financial statements. He even brought the box of unaddressed letters from Eoin’s desk drawer, stating that Eoin had been adamant that I have them. Eoin had named me executor of the Smith-Gallagher family trust—a trust I knew nothing about—of which I am the sole beneficiary. Garvagh Glebe and her surrounding properties were included in the trust. Thomas was a very wealthy man, he left Eoin a very wealthy man, and Eoin gave it all to me. I would give it all away to have one more day with either of them.
Garvagh Glebe belonged to me now, and I was desperate to return to her, even as I shuddered at the thought of living there alone.
“I’ve made all the calls,” Harvey said, checking his watch and eyeing the list in front of him. “We have a meeting at noon with the caretaker. You can walk through the property. It’s huge, Anne. I never understood Eoin’s attachment to it. It’s not a moneymaker, and he never visited. In fact, he didn’t want to talk about it at all. Ever. But he wouldn’t sell. However . . . he made no stipulation on your selling. I have an appraiser and a realtor scheduled to meet us there, just so you have an idea of what it’s worth. It will give you more options.”
“I need to go by myself,” I whispered. I didn’t bother to tell him I wouldn’t be selling the house under any circumstances.
“Why?” he gasped.
“Because.”
Harvey sighed, and Barbara bit her lip. They were worried about me. But there was no way I could walk through Garvagh Glebe, listening for Eoin, looking for Thomas, and seeing only the years that stretched between us. I couldn’t return to Garvagh Glebe with an audience. If Barbara and Harvey were worried about me now, it would be a hundred times worse when they saw me weeping as I haunted the halls of my home.